


Monsters

by Felloffalot



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Gen, Monster Hunters, Orcs, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 06:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19126039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felloffalot/pseuds/Felloffalot
Summary: Ken Radford, a monster slayer, has been tasked to rescue a blacksmith's daughter from a band of orcs. Simple enough.





	Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this for a Creative Writing class during my Fall 2018 semester in college. It's been collecting dust in my hard-drive ever since, so I figured I might as well post it here.

            So, here I am, drinking the night away by myself in some backwater town that I wandered into, half-hoping to drink myself to death as I tear through my wallet like a rampaging troll tearing up helpless villagers. I'm just about to fall over unconscious when this guy approaches me - older man, in his fifties if I had to guess, scraggly beard, unkempt hair, and clothing full of holes and scrapes. Right when I'm about to stab him out of fear that he might be robbing me, he starts talking.

            "You're Ken, correct?" He says.

            "Yeah," I said. "Ken Radford. Monster slayer." Pretty sure I'm slurring every other word, but he understands me well enough.

            "I've been looking for you," He says. He takes a seat, uninvited.

            "Lots of people are looking for me," I say. "Look, if this is about those rich pricks a few towns back, I'm not gonna lie - they had it coming." I take another swig from my mug.

            "No, nothing like that," He says. "This is a personal affair. It concerns my daughter."

            "Sorry, pal, but I only deal with monsters," I say. "Family stuff is your problem."

            "This _is_ a monster problem, Sir Radford. My daughter is the adventerous type, often wandering into the woods on her own. I normally think nothing of it, but two nights ago, she ran off and never returned. I have heard rumors of orc activity in these areas as of late. If that is true, I fear she may be in grave danger." I chuckle.

            "Orcs. Always the damn orcs, ain't it?"

            "When my wife left, she took everything I had except for my daughter. She is all I have left. I cannot afford to lose her."

            "Alright, alright, I don't need your damn life story. Let's talk payment." I put my empty mug down on the table.

            "Unfortunately, I cannot afford to pay you in the traditional sense. However, I am quite skilled at forging. Someone of your expertise would surely fine use of a finely crafted blade."

            "Alright, fine," I say. "I'll do it. Point me in the right direction and I'll start looking." Dunno why I agreed to it so easily. Guess I'm more generous when I'm drunk off my ass.

            "To the west, up the hill and in the clearing in the forest. That's where she usually plays." I try to get out of my seat, trip, fall, get back up, and grab my stuff. Time to get to work, I thought.

            "One more thing," He says. "My daughter's name is Delilah. Mine is Jonathan. Tell her that, and she should trust you. Best of luck to you, Sir Radford."

            "I don't need luck," I say.

            Well, okay, I _said_ that, but I didn't really _mean_ it. Frankly, I'll need all the luck in the damn universe to find one little girl who's been missing for two days when all the tracks have already been covered up by a snowstorm. It's the dead of night, I'm freezing my ass off, the wind's blowing nonstop, and my waterskin is nearly empty. Worst of all, I'm kicking myself to agreeing to do this shit all for a sword.

            "Probably not even gonna be a good sword," I say to myself under my breath.

            Well, whatever. No use bitching about it. Just gotta get the job over with, get the sword, melt it down, sell whatever I get out of it. Can probably make a decent profit that way. Hopefully enough for a few weeks worth of rations. I probably should've brought rations with me on this hunt. Always gotta forget _something_ , I guess.

            I'm about halfway up the hill now, and goddamn, it's cold. Wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for all of this wind. If I get frostbite and die, it's all that old guy's fault. He didn't ask me to leave immediately, sure, but with how long his daughter's been missing, I can't afford to waste time. She might die if I wait too long - actually, he didn't say whether he wanted her back dead or alive, did he? Damn. Maybe I could've gotten a good night's rest first.

            Getting pretty close now. Pretty sure my nose is frozen shut and my mouth isn't far behind. Might have to find somewhere to make camp, wait for the weather to calm the hell down. It might be dangerous if the old guy was telling the truth, but I doubt it. Everybody pins everything on orcs cause they're big and scary, but it's just as likely to be bandits or goblins or some shit.

            Okay, reached the clearing. It's big, wide-open, protected by trees, and damn far from the village. Perfect place a little girl to play, and to be kidnapped and/or eaten by random forest creatures. Time to start looking.

            Finding anything on the ground is probably gonna be a lost cause, so I investigate the trees. There's fallen branches, leaves, a few abandoned toys nearby, almost completely covered by snow. The most interesting thing I notice is some markings on the trees. Scratches and bits of broken bark, but only on a few specific ones, and they continue deeper into the forest. Seems like the girl struggled. That's good. Means she wasn't killed immediately. I'll follow these and see where they lead me.

            Wonder what I should do after this. Probably skip town, hide out near a riverbank for a while, do some ice fishing. I managed to give those bounty hunters the slip a town back,  but no doubt they're still on my ass. Staying in one place for too long is dangerous, but so is hiding in the wilderness in the middle of winter with pretty much no food and money, I guess. I'll make it work.

            Wait, did I forget to pay for my drink? Dammit. Guess I'll _have_ to skip town.

            Something interesting a bit up the trail the girl left - a bit of brown stuff, poking out of the snow, surrounded by flies. I shoo them out of the way for a closer look. Pretty sure I know what this is already, but it doesn't hurt to take a closer look. I grab a handful of whatever it is, hold it close to my face, and take a whiff. It smells like shit, because it's literally shit - my hand is full of a big pile of shit. It's orc shit, no doubt. Nothing else could make something this big or this smelly.

            Orcs. Everywhere you go, they got a different name for them - "orkus", "greenskins", "big green bastards" - but they're the same no matter where you are. They're big, green, mean, dumb, and ridiculously strong. They travel in groups and rape, murder, and pillage everything they come across. Usually not in that order.

            Old man probably wouldn't be happy that he was right, but this is a good thing. Ups the girl's chances of survival. After orcs capture something, they usually starve them out before doing anything else. Get 'em nice and weak, make sure they can't fight back. After that, they like to either cook their captives or force them into slave labor.

            Honestly, I do feel for them, just a bit. They've really got no other options. Relationships between orcs and other races, humans especially, are so volatile that there can't be any real peace between them in this day and age. No person in their right mind would accept an orc into their society. This whole burning-and-pillaging style is the only real thing they can do, cause otherwise they couldn't survive. Of course, I won't let a little bit of sympathy stop me. I've got a job to do.

            Think I'm getting close to the camp now. I see smoke a bit of a way's away, and I can hear some vague hooting and hollering in the distance. Guess it was too much to hope for them to be asleep by now. Orcs are nocturnal, and they can see in the dark as well as a cat can. Would've liked to have hit them during the day, but again, no time to waste.

            Alright, getting pretty close. I'm moving through the bushes now, trying to conceal my movements best I can. Once I get close enough, I can finally see what I'm up against. Just as I thought, orcs. About a dozen, spread out pretty thin over the large clearing they're set up camp in. Three of them are sitting around a campfire joking and laughing, roasting a pig over a fire, while the rest are split up around the camp. They don't have any walls down, but there are enough tents, trees, bushes, and natural rock formations that I have a decent amount of cover. I don't see the girl anywhere - must be in one of the tents.

            Before I get to work, I take a quick stock of my equipment. I brought a shortsword just in case. Good for assassinations, not much good for an actual fight. My main tool here is gonna be this heavy crossbow. I would've preferred something lighter, but I can't afford the risk that one of them might survive a shot in a situation like this. They could alert the whole camp or kill the girl.

            Got the crossbow loaded, just gotta pick a good target. I take a quick scan, and notice one pissing behind a tree pretty close to me. He's totally obscured from the rest of the camp.

            Perfect.

            I move into a better position and line up my shot. Poor bastard doesn't even get a split second to react when the crossbow bolt goes clean through his brain, coming out of his head from the other side and sticking him to the tree. A clean kill, but I don't have much time to admire my handiwork.

            A group of two is nearby, a bit north of the tree, sitting on a log and drinking the night away. I have a plan, but I need to be quick. I load my bolt and fire it straight into the head of the one sitting on the left. I catch him slump to the ground out of the corner of my eye as I drop my crossbow and dash towards the other one, too surprised by his friend's death to yell anything. I catch him straight in the throat with my shortsword, and finish him off by stabbing him through the brain. Some of the blood splatters on my face. Gross.

            I drag their bodies off into the bushes. They were sitting behind some tents, which covered them well enough, but I can't afford the risk of some bastard stumbling upon their bodies. Once that's done, I get back to taking out stragglers, waiting for them to wander away from the rest of the camp before taking them out and hiding the bodies. I manage to get three more of them this way before one of the orcs starts getting wise. He calls one of his buddies over to the area where that one guy was pissing. I'm pretty sure he says something about how that guy is taking too long, but my Orcish isn't great.

            These guys are on alert, so I need to be more crafty. From behind a tree, I let out a whistle, and duck back into the bushes. The one orc says he'll go to investigate, just as I thought, and the other one stays behind. Soon as they're far away from each other, I hit the one that stayed behind with a bolt. While his body's falling, I get up near the other guy quick as I can while being unnoticed. As soon as he turns around when he hears the body fall, I get behind him and slit his throat.

            So far, so good. Only about four orcs remaining, but now I've got a problem. There's an orc heading right this way, and I don't have a way of stopping him. It'll take too long to load a new bolt, and I can't get into a good enough position to distract him fast enough. I'm running through the possibilities, but I can't see a way this'll end well for me. Seems like I got no choice but to bumrush him.

            I come at him straight on, since my only other route is through the fire. I'm running as fast as I can, but he sees me coming, and he braces for impact. I pretend like I'll come in from the left, but feint as he moves to block with his sword, and stab him in the gut from the right. It's a clean hit, no way he'll survive, but he manages to let off one last howl of pain before he goes down.

            Dammit.

            The three at the campfire are onto me, and they're pissed. Two of them grab swords, the other one takes up a crossbow. No choice but to fight now. I wait for the two with swords to get close. One's coming from the left, the other from the right. I dodge out of the way of the one on the left and kick him away, his sword clattering to the ground as he's stunned for a bit, before ducking under the slash from the one on the right. I grab him and position him in front of me, and he takes a crossbow bolt intended for me - straight to the face.

            One down, two to the go. The crossbow orc's busy reloading and the one with the sword is busy recovering. I charge at the one with the crossbow as he finishes loading a bolt, and just as he's about to fire, I stab my sword straight through his arm, forcing him to drop his crossbow. As he's reeling from the brain, I wrap my arms around his torso, pick him up, and chuck him as hard as I can into the fire. I feel a little bad for him as he starts screaming in pain.

            Alright, time for this last fucker. He's howling like a maniac as he charges at me, sword ready to strike. I can't block - his sword's twice as big as mine, he'd snap it like a twig. Gotta duck, weave, wait for an opening.

            I feel the wind whooshing past me as I dodge to the side of his uppercut. Next he goes for a horizontal attack, aiming for my neck. I just barely manage to duck under it, and I'm pretty sure he takes a few of my hairs off. He's pissed off now, yelling something about how I'll pay for what I did, and he goes for an overhead swing to my brain, but I manage to jump back at the last second.

            His sword's a bit wedged in the ground, and he doesn't manage to dislodge it with his first tug - this is my chance. I rush in on him as he finally manages to dislodge it. He tries to take another swing, but I'm faster, and I manage to stick my sword straight up through his chin. He desperately grabs at it, his tongue hanging out of his mouth and his eyes rolling over, but he's completely helpless as the blood drains out of his head. I yank my sword out of him and watch him fall to the ground, dead.

            Alright, place is cleared out. Time to find the girl. Most of the tents are full of random assortments of crap, like animal carcasses, stolen loot, and pieces of armor. Good thing I caught them when they weren't wearing that shit. Just as I'm finishing up the last of the smaller tents, I hear a whimper from a nearby one - probably the largest one in the whole camp, actually.

            I walk through the entrance, and I'm immediately struck by how warm it is in here. All the adrenaline almost made me forget how cold I am, but the warmth in here immediately makes me remember. There's a fire burning in the middle of the tent, and I'm almost tempted to sit by it, but then I see something. A little girl, wrapped in a torn clock, staring at me with those big doe eyes from nearby the fire. She's shivering and whimpering. I make my way over to her and crouch down to her level.

            "Hey, kid," I say. "It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm a monster slayer. I came here to rescue you." She recoils away as I try to put my hand on her shoulder. "Jonathan sent me. Your dad. He told me your name is Delilah. Is that right?" She nods. "You can trust me, Delilah. The orcs are gone. They're not going to hurt you anymore." There's a long pause before she says anything. Kid can barely even talk.

            "Okay, " she says.

            "Now listen," I say. "It's really cold outside. We'll have to stay here for the night. As soon as morning breaks and the wind calms down, I'll take you straight home. Is that okay?"

            "Yes," she says. "That's okay."

            "Good," I say. I hold out my waterskin. "Here. You can have this. It's not much, but-" I can barely even finish what I'm saying before she grabs it out of my hand and gulps it down like it's the sweetest damn thing she's ever tasted. I wait until she's finished before going on. "Alright. Get some sleep, Delilah. I promise this will all be over soon."

            I get a bit farther away from her before I lay down, since she probably doesn't want a weird bloonstained dude sleeping right next to her. I'll have to sleep with one eye open tonight, just in case those orcs have any buddies not at the campsite right now.

            "Um, mister," she says.

            "Ken," I say. "My name is Ken."

            "Mister Ken," she says. "Thank you."

            "No problem, kid."

           


End file.
